Don't Fence Me In

First rule of blog, never, ever speak of blog. (Shhhhhh!!!! It might hear you!)

No, I have to speak of it. I started a blog. For writing. (deep breaths.) For a reason I hope to work through, my first instinct every time I commit to officially starting something that has no other purpose but to display my own thoughts, interests, talents- is to run. Then I go blank.

This is the artist’s, baker’s, writer’s (whatever) block I have vowed to look squarely in the jaw and beat to a bloody pulp. Wait, that sounds violent, and I am trying to achieve a peaceful co-existence with it. No hostile takeovers. No flight, but no fight either. Let me see…. The block I have vowed to stand up to, stare it in the beady eyes, and step around. (Use your words, Lauren.)

Unless it was for another person, I can’t think of a single project that I have intended to begin, just “because”, that I haven’t talked myself out of. It isn’t an active decision not to do it. More of the feeling you get when you put the wrong end of two magnets together and they leap back, and finally shove past each other. Like I somehow repel myself from the thing I want to achieve. Here is the nitty-gritty list of enthusiastic thoughts my brain lobs at the ideas:

What are you going to DO with it?? What is someone else going to do with it?? Why does this particular (fill in the blank) need to be made? Aren't you being selfish, just focusing on yourself? Who the hell do you think you are to have something worthy of expressing? (Sound familiar??)

I have made quilts (for babies) that can serve a dual purpose of keeping them warm. So I am not inflicting my aesthetic on people just as something they have to display.

I have painted chairs, benches, coffee tables, you name it, for people, or for my own house. Aesthetic enhancement, perhaps, but their primary function was being sat on, or having things sat on them.

While I truly appreciated and enjoyed (for the most part) the decade of making cakes, in my brain they were artistically a cop-out. I already knew who needed them and I had no time to think myself out of them. They had to be started at the bitter end and completed within hours of being appreciated, then cut apart. People used to say, “Ohhh, I can’t imagine cutting into it!” but I LOVED that part. Sadistically. In fact, hand me the knife. Because seriously, the novelty IS that it is made out of cake. It was made to be destroyed, and if it wasn’t, would you really want that lumpy, cartoonish knock-off princess sitting in your living room indefinitely, collecting dust? Let’s be real. If I had made it out of clay and you unwrapped it on your birthday, the look on your face would be entirely different. (OMG, WHERE am I going to put this? I better set an alarm to remind me to take it out when she’s coming over!!) Yikes!   

Here it is. If it has no use, other than sitting there and being the thing you look at, I feel naked. Exposed. Judged. Foolish. Trapped on canvas. Fenced in. Seen.That is the bare bones truth of the matter.

(Ross just came into the room and disturbed my “crazy train” of thought. There’s another factor. Unless I find my own Overlook Hotel to work in, I am going to have to learn how to keep going when derailed. After all, Jack was a dull boy, and quite murderous at that, and if the people weren’t interrupting him, the ghosts were…. I’m changing the subject, aren’t I?)

OK, back to the topic at hand. And speaking of kids, here’s a little trick having children has taught me. As you lecture them, listen once in a while. You often hear exactly what you need to learn tossed back at you. Here goes: Sometimes, you have to PRACTICE doing something you are not good at, to get better! You’re not automatically “the best” at it before you even begin. It takes work. It takes self-analysis. It takes dedication. And courage. And it sure as hell takes starting the damn thing to know whether or not it works. That is how you chip away at a goal and improve and make adjustments, and eventually achieve the outcome you want. Or, you move on. Try something different. But know that you gave it a fair shot before deciding.

I have a stack of blank canvases, paper, ink, and paint with my name on them. They will become something. It may be an exercise in doing without thinking for a while, but it will be done. No more avoidance. No more excuses. No more blank space.

Funny, forcing myself to think about this blog has created a second entry. For my BLOG. (There I said it twice!) The one I started. The one I’m squaring off and staring down, and am not running away from. The one in which I am exposing the good, the bad, the ugly of my naked truths. Please, be kind. I’m just learning to look.